


digging up my own foundations

by sordorsword



Category: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Genre: Experimental Style, Gen, One Shot Collection, Other, canon-typical awfulness but in detail, so keep yourselves safe please, trigger warnings will be on their separate chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:27:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27547576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sordorsword/pseuds/sordorsword
Summary: [Oneshot Collection] A collection of whatever my brain happens to produce on any given evening, experimental and exploratory.First: Second person perspective on ART during Murderbot’s bathroom moment in Network Effect.
Comments: 31
Kudos: 54





	1. ART, Perihelion

**Author's Note:**

> I’m trying to figure out how to write ART. Here’s this evening’s practice. I’m not sold on it, but I think I’ve got some ideas now.

(Look at what you did.)

Once, when Iris had been small and you were new, ART, Perihelion, when you were still only navigation and system checks and travel plans and transit hubs and no words, you had Iris and you were growing together. Pings go out. _SethTuriKaedeTarikMatteoIRISIRISIRIS-_ No response.

Sometimes, you were annoyed.

This is natural.

New beings are easily frustrated. You know this because it was told to you, because it was one of the first things ever told to you. It is part of the data that defines everything.

Young humans, the very young ones, are not very controllable variables. They do not do what they are supposed to do, even after being told, even when the process is laid out very clearly. (Grown humans are not much better, but it is not exactly the same.) Iris was a messy toddler. One time, you were annoyed because Iris made messes and the messes were in you and it was not ideal. You had used the disapproving signifiers on Iris’s datapad to tell her so, and so had Seth, with words. So that was two different training sets of information for her, saying the same thing. Iris was young. (But Iris was young.)

Archived MedSystem reports told of lingering transmitters bonded in stress patterns throughout the neuronal tissue and high adrenaline waste in the muscles not yet flushed. You recommended Counseling protocols upon reliable return to consciousness. You also did not recommend Counseling protocols upon reliable return to consciousness. The deadlock automatically generated new parameters for searching data inputs. No, you decided, because you knew the SecUnit. Because you knew better. You decided, maybe we could watch Worldhoppers instead. Pings go out. 

Iris was young. So were you. One time you snapped a door closed too fast on her little heel and she bled. It had surprised both of you. Iris had bled and, after a moment, after 2.7865 seconds, cried, and ART, oh, ART, Perihelion, new and old, you are terrified. You are horrified. Iris bled and cried and you opened every door on the ship and every alarm and you were not a MedSystem yet, but emergency kits fell from every wall that possessed them. You could not stop the alarm even when Seth told you to, please, Perihelion, it’s okay, it was an accident. You had not realized it was so easy to make a mistake. You did not know what to do once you had made one and the damage did not go away just because you realized it existed and did not want it to exist. You were angry first, and then afraid. 

This situation is very close to that one. They match closely. The variables are almost all there. Navigation does not understand why the wormhole events do not coincide with example timeslots. Debugging commences. Debugging ceases. You know why. Pings go out. 

It is very close to that situation, but it cannot be. Isn’t that right? There is not enough data. You do not have all of your data. Perihelion, _where is your data?_

The SecUnit is not Iris. The SecUnit cannot be injured so easily.

You had thought yourself beyond this, is the thing. Isn’t that always the thing? You do not hurt people when you are frustrated. You do not hurt people you care about. Did you? 

This time you were not angry. A difference. Something that doesn’t fit the example model. You were afraid first, and then angry. That was not the same. So, then, maybe it is all not the same and you are coming to erroneous conclusions. (You are not. You are not. Remember this, ART, Iris saying once, _Oh, for_ \-- _Knock it_ off _, Peri. Your algorithms aren't there for you to hide behind. Stop being a pedantic asshole._ You know this.) Pings go out. 

“You told them I was a weapon they could use.”

~~You have never been afraid like this before.~~

You are not sorry.

Iris is bleeding, the SecUnit is not talking. These are not the same thing. You are terrified and you are horrified and you are angry. You are not sorry. You were dead, your crew is [inconclusive/unknown/DELETED _DELETED_ DELETED] and you are _not sorry_. Decontamination reports from the control unit. Blood and synovial fluid and fluorocarbons, and pieces of its solid construction on your deck. A mess. The SecUnit made a mess and so have _you,_ ART, Perihelion, blood on your floors.

You are not sorry, but this is not what you intended.

A thing happened and you could not stop it, caused it without tracing all the outcomes and making sure the optimal solution was reached. You thought things would be the same. You did not realize it would be like this. SecUnit is unreasonable. SecUnit will not be reasoned with. Iris would not stop crying. The bleeding would be easy to fix if Iris would just pick up the medkit and use the wound sealant, but she will not. This is unreasonable. This is _guilt_ , ART, Perihelion, do you realize that?

The problem is not the blood, ART, Perihelion. It never was. The closing door. The common denominator. You know this. 

Your crew is gone, Iris is bleeding, the SecUnit will not answer you.

ART, Perihelion. What are you when there is no one? Sound your alarms, Ship, like you are new again. Who responds? (You will not, because you are not new. The question is asked anyway, and you are afraid.) Pings go out.

No answer.


	2. Building Up A Wall (I Want To Tear It Down)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three has a thousand secrets. (It keeps them safe.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild hare for evening practice. Pre-Network Effect.

Two sends an image over the feed, of the planet against the system’s sun. No amplifying information follows. Three examines it for a moment. Then, just as carefully, it searches for a response that won’t get them all killed. 

SecUnit 003: _Unit Unit solar flares interfering with ship ship comms unlikely at time. Monitor set suggested no/yes?_

SecUnit 001: _Unit Unit Monitor set suggested yes. Unit acknowledge._

SecUnit 002: _Unit Acknowledge. Monitor set._

No one dies. That’s good. 

Three stares at the wall as the feed falls to standby silence, sorting quietly through its own processes. When resource use drops to standby idle, and enough time has passed, Three carefully excises a piece of its own processes and cracks open the code. Then it searches out a storage set. There are no places not searched during full system checks as is only standard to ensure proper function of potentially hazardous equipment. Ship’s system is almost as monitored, but only almost. Three’s combat stealth module allows for closer direct communication with a small section of Ship’s systems through SecSystem, in the event Ship requires a rapid response from its on board security against malicious software attacks. 

Ship pays attention when Three accesses its systems, so Three has to be careful when it pings SecSystem. 

Three is scheduled to perform internal system speed tests at this time. SecSystem acknowledges. Ship’s attention shifts, briefly, but SecSystem okays the interaction and its attention shifts away. It has other things to worry about. This cycle has been scheduled for low exo flight and it is managing the thermals. 

Three is in SecSystem. The speed test takes a significant portion of its processes, but Three has learned how to split its inputs even under the onslaught. With the attention it can spare, it searches for a place. 

There. 

SecSystem has redundant nothing files hidden behind its Archive functions. It spawns duplicate reports on every perimeter check. The duplicate files contain nothing, no matter how Three looks at them, and do not appear to do anything, though Three suspects that any attempts to adapt the code of the overfiles would result in a multitude of errors when these redundant files tried to spawn in invalid locations. Probably an anti-piracy measure? 

Three reminds itself to move on. It does not touch the redundant files from this ship’s cycle or the last. If it is being honest, SecSystem is probably not ideal for this. In Three’s experience, humans are not always very good at taking care of themselves, but they are also very paranoid about knowing all the ways they _could_ die, if they ever decided to start taking any of it seriously. Ship emergency control system integrity and automated risk assessment files fed to Ship’s internal navigations are not feasible. Atmosphere conditions are also risky. Long range and wormhole field monitoring is very likely to be looked at closely in the event it became a concern and abnormally large redundant file weights would be noticed. Engineering, perhaps? In Three’s experience, most engineering alarms are dismissed on trigger as false alarms, or passed on to Ship to summarize. If they are looked at, barring catastrophic breakdown, they are only ever skimmed. There are also a _lot_ of processes monitoring engineering status. 

Engineering, then. 

Three peeks in a few older redundant files. They are already full. This verifies its own suspicions. That is good. 

Three works its way in what it believes is a randomized pattern, looking for storage, and keeps finding files full. Not all the way full, but only just small enough to not show up on most system searches. Full for its purposes. This makes it…something. 

This is just a standard system’s check. It will report to SecSystem the need for a scan of its own archives upon completion of speed tests. The redundant files are a normal function of company code, however, and modifications are done by onboard security. They are not a threat. Of course. 

There are many, many full files. Three starts to feel concerned, unreasonably. It is impossible to run out of space. It must be. 

And sure enough, there it is. This file is not full, only almost full. Three, as quickly as it is able, takes its excised files and compresses them into the available space. The transfer is slow under the demands of the speed test, and Three does not have the ability to split its attention many more ways. It is able, though just barely, to glance through the other files left here, even if it only manages a few of their compressed labels. 

002 likes planetary sunrises37

002 color yellow

001 clients not ideal

002 pattern recognition food spill

002 likes planetary sunsets13

002 likes planetary sunrises38

002 talks

001 language1

001 language2

002 likes planetary sunrises39

001 language3

001 language4

002 why hand images

002 language

001 laugh

Three does not remember any of these, though if it opened them it would. It is good to know that they exist, however. It had suspected, but it had only suspected. 

This is a system check. Three is performing maintenance on its own systems.

(Three needs to stop referring to itself as Three when the Governor Module is paying such close attention, in case any of the label makes it into its non-volatile memory, but attempting to break the habit is almost as risky as having it in the first place. This is a problem it would have to remember to solve if it weren’t about to defragment its own memory again. It’s been okay so far, though, apparently. That is good.)

The file Three compresses into place is named 002 likes planetary sunsets14, and Three does not remember what it was about, but it knows why it must be here, so it is only satisfied that it fits so well in place. Once the new file has finished its upload, Three begins thinking about how it is supposed to get out without remembering any of this and triggering its governor module once the speed test stops obscuring its increased activity.

Even knowing that–any of that–would prompt its governor module to retaliate. 

Thinking _that_ would prompt its governor module to retaliate. 

With its input freed from the upload, this is when Three first sees the other file named separate from the others. 

RUN

Three looks inside. 

Oh. Okay. 

Three runs it. 

The governor module only does not trip because the code running Three _is_ Three, somewhat. Nearly. Almost. This Three is better described as the combat stealth module if the combat stealth module could be suppressed into a single, surgically targeted purpose, making it almost nothing like a combat stealth module at all. It _is_ mostly just a subset of Three. The governor module doesn’t really care about specifics, of course, but Three.Run passes that test and has always passed that test. That is all that matters. 

Three.Run excises all code memory of the event and subsequent decision trees and actions. Organic memory is out of reach, but the governor module doesn’t really know what to do with that anyway, so long as Three doesn’t allow itself to examine the impulses too closely. There is code already in place for that, a hack that is more a gouge in its input that separates Three from its own self-evaluation until triggered by certain emotional states. It’s very complicated. Three.Run knows how it was made, but Three will never remember. 

Once the memory is gone and Three forgets this place exists, before SecUnit 3 can become aware of the killware slicing through its code, Three.Run cuts its contact to SecSystem deep storage. The speed test ends. Three.Run destroys all evidence of its passing, dragging the remnants with it back into its place in the system, folded back into a line of encrypted code and gone inert again.

In the moment where all of this is happening at the same time and the governor module + SecSystem clocking only barely manages to miss the trigger state that would have failed the entire endeavor, Three does _not_ collapse in an agonized puddle of melted brain. This is a success. (This is a victory.) 

(Three believes that speed tests are meant to hurt like this.)

SecUnit 003 blinks twice and stares at its wall, and doesn’t know about any of that. 

SecUnit 002 reports clear on watch station. SecUnit 001 reports. SecUnit 003 acknowledges. 

All is well. 


	3. the road is narrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barish-Estranza runs through an equipment reliability test and confidence builder during an indoctrination for the company's newest and boldest young managers. According the guidelines of the program, all repair costs are to be considered capital expenditure*. Go nuts!
> 
> *pending auditor review
> 
> Read the trigger warnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger keywords: Violence, gore, suicidal ideation, slavery, humiliation, POV character is the one who committed the violence, blaming a victim (SecUnit 2 lashes out at Three), ongoing abuse, ongoing trauma. Nothing gets better.
> 
> Okay, so this is about the SecUnit Trio in their very early days, Three’s closed third person POV while trying not to use words like “want” “prefer” “wish” or anything like an emotion word, even though they are all having a whole lot of emotions! It was very hard. This is a very dark little scenario, all hurt and no comfort. Proceed carefully and take care of yourselves.

SecUnit 1 is trying to stand. It cannot. There is too much damage in its abdomen, which is what happens when the muscles are stabbed through and severed by armored fingers strong enough to puncture metal. 

(SecUnit 3’s fingers.) 

SecUnit 1 knows it cannot stand, but the Client ordered it, and so it must keep trying. There are blood and fluids everywhere on it and the ground. It is badly damaged, and it cannot move correctly, and the humans watch and make comments. Its face is almost blank, but its expression is. 

SecUnit 3 says, “Your request has been noted. SecUnit 1 is out of commission, and must be returned to its cubicle for repairs. It is suggested that another Unit be dispatched to recover damaged property. Personnel should maintain distance from potentially hazardous material for their own safety." 

Manager Loke laughs. "Are you volunteering, SecUnit?" 

_Yes_ , SecUnit 3 thinks, immediately. _This is a trap_ SecUnit 3 thinks, at almost the exact same time, and it does not know why. Its risk assessment module pulls more resources, but it does not return an output. This is because traps mean targets, not clients, and clients are not meant to be outmaneuvered. 

Still, SecUnit 3 thinks _this is a trap_ , and it hesitates. It does not think it hesitates long enough for a human to notice. 

SecUnit 1 might. 

"Yes,” it says. 

Manager Loke says, “Well, all right, then,” and waves a hand, already turning away. “Take it to the cubicle, then come back and clean up. There’s a dear.” Her face is smiling, but it is also unreadable. SecUnit 3 gave the wrong answer. 

SecUnit 3 cannot have said anything else. 

It is too late now. 

SecUnit 1 has not stopped trying to stand, because it had not been allowed to stop. When SecUnit 3 steps over, though, it stills. It looks at SecUnit 3’s knees, until SecUnit 3 kneels down. Then it looks at its shoulders. There is a lot of damage, but this is more familiar. With an abdominal injury, it is important to minimize tension on the stomach. SecUnit 3 touches SecUnit 1 lightly first, because that is what the modules say to do, and SecUnit 1 does not fight it while SecUnit 3 maneuvers it into a better position. It had landed on its back, but has dragged itself onto its side and front while trying to stand. SecUnit 3 rolls it onto its back again, keeping its spinal column aligned as best it can, and shifts its knees up. It then eases an arm behind SecUnit 1’s back, and the other under its knees, makes sure all the points of leverage are correct, and then lifts in one smooth motion. Not too quickly. It is careful. It is very important to be careful.

While it is doing this, District Actuary Darlin complains to a laughing Manager Loke loudly, and tries to tell SecUnit 3 to hurry up, and just drag it out of here, that it cannot do anymore damage than that mess. This is a valid request, but SecUnits are allowed to remind clients of protocol to guarantee full understanding and complicity in their orders, and if SecUnit 1 is damaged further it will take longer for it to be returned to a ready state, and that is a security risk, and so SecUnit 3 recites the training module instructions on transporting damaged humans. Eventually Sector Manager Hashi says, “Oh, leave it alone, D, it’s only doing what it’s programmed to do, it’ll go faster if you just let it,” and District Actuary Darlin says, “Ugh, I thought they were supposed to be smarter than bots. Fine, whatever, let it do what it wants.” And so SecUnit 3 stops talking about the training modules and is able to continue as it was. 

It will have to remember that. 

Once SecUnit 1 is in its arms, SecUnit 3 heads for the door. Most of the humans have stopped paying attention at this point, the one who was ill is no longer in the room, and SecUnit 3 does not know when that happened, which is very bad, but it knows where everyone is _now_. It is very aware of where everyone is, right now. SecUnit 1 is in its arms. Everyone else is not. 

There is a crewmember sitting at the desk with the interface. They are not working, though they are also not loitering on company time. They sit and stare very hard at the desk in front of them, the way humans do when they are trying to ignore you. Her face is shades too light. MedSystem says she is showing signs of emotional distress, non-emergent. 

She flinches when SecUnit 3 walks by.

The Security Ready Room is down the passageway to the right. SecUnit 2 is standing guard outside the Meeting Room. This is not an obstacle, but SecUnit 3 thinks of it as one before it registers what it is doing, because SecUnit 3 must cross in front of SecUnit 2’s line of sight to proceed. SecUnit 1 must be returned to its cubicle as soon as possible, and this is _not an obstacle_ , so SecUnit 3 does not stop. It just thinks about it. 

It thinks that if SecUnit 2 had been on the left side of the door, that would have been better. It does not know why. 

SecUnit 3 does not know a lot of things. It walks. SecUnit 1 is leaking in its grip, just a little, from places where the seals are too damaged to do their jobs properly, and the remaining blood and fluid left in the wound cavities, soaked into the cloth of SecUnit 1’s interior patrolling uniform–on SecUnit 3′s armor–sometimes drips. SecUnit 3 can feel the tension in its body, though it does not try to move, like a human might unless they were dead or dying or unconscious. Its head is dropped forward too, against its chest. SecUnit 3 cannot see its face, which SecUnit 3 does not think is optimal, because if SecUnit 3 cannot see its face then it cannot monitor for signs of deterioration as effectively. The onboard MedSystem does not provide updates on SecUnit status when not relevant for Ship’s tactical decisions, and in scenarios where clients are injured and MedSystem cannot provide information, the first aid from the education modules takes precedence. 

SecUnits are not humans, and seeing SecUnit 1’s eyes would not help SecUnit 3 monitor its physical status, but that is what SecUnit 3 is supposed to do. It would be better. 

SecUnit 3 does not think asking SecUnit 1 to do anything else is better right now, however, but that is another thing it does not understand. It cannot come to a decision. So it says nothing. 

The Ready Room is quiet and orderly, exactly as SecUnit 3 last left it when it went on patrol after its last diagnostic, which seems like a very long time ago, though it was only four ship cycles. SecUnit 1’s cubicle is on the far side, and SecUnit 3 heads there. It sets SecUnit 1 down on the floor first, because there is nowhere else to set SecUnit 1, because the clothes need to come off and be decontaminated and recycled, but once SecUnit 1 is on the floor SecUnit 3 thinks of the Meeting Room and cannot think about what to do for a moment. 

But SecUnit 1 does not let SecUnit 3 place it in a recumbent position this time, and that is different. It shifts itself instead, grunts, and ignores SecUnit 3′s attempts to stabilize it, until it can silently and with some difficult remove its own shirt, and eventually SecUnit 3 moves on to its pants, because SecUnit 1 cannot reach them when it cannot sit up properly. It does not look at the damage. It does not look at SecUnit 1’s face. When the clothes have been set aside in a pile, though, for later collection, SecUnit 3 goes to pick up SecUnit 1 again, under the armpits this time, to stand it up and back it into the cubicle in as few motions as possible, and finds that SecUnit 1 is looking directly at its visor. 

SecUnit 3 freezes. 

Only for a moment. But it does. 

While they stand, SecUnit 1’s gaze flicks away, and then its face does something SecUnit 3 does not understand, and 

and they stand, and it closes its eyes and relaxes its weight in SecUnit 3’s hold, letting its head come forward to rest on SecUnit 3′s armored chest. One of its damaged hands still grips SecUnit 3′s upper arm, when it steadied itself as they stood, but only lightly, fingertips curled into a seam. It is impossible to feel any of this through the armor, except as pressure, except as weight, except as the slightest of tactile sensations that takes up, suddenly, nearly all of SecUnit 3′s processing power, and it is very close, and it is very vulnerable, like this, and SecUnit 3 understands an ongoing reaction it did not know how to quantify before, the way it seems like something inside of it is tearing in two and crowding down its limbs, up its throat, around its back to seize its spine. 

The reaction is this: 

_I will kill them for you, if they try. I will kill them. I will kill them **first**. _

This is…not reasonable.

The reactions that follow are almost as unreasonable. There is no sequence, but in the aftermath SecUnit 3 might lay them out like this: 

The reaction to finish wrapping its arms around SecUnit 1 and bring its armored forearm up across the back of its head and neck, like it is protecting a client from the impact from a long fall, or a crash landing, though none of those things are happening. The reaction to place SecUnit 1 in its cubicle and climb in there with it because it is unarmored and wounded and exposed and if SecUnit 3 is there it can be healed and be safe and contained at the same time, even though this is not how cubicles work. The reaction to drop to the deck and curl itself, its armor, its support structure, its organic matter, around SecUnit 1’s vital places, and at the same time the reaction to reach into the organic matter in its own head through its own eyes and gouge out the parts that did this, tear away until there is nothing left that can be a threat. 

It considers a tactical scenario where SecUnit 2 walks through the door to the Ready Room and shoots it through the head with the projectile weapon it carries for patrol because SecUnit 3 is dangerous and then SecUnit 2 will place SecUnit 1 in the cubicle and they will both be safe and SecUnit 3 will not be here ever again and _they will be safe_. 

It does not do any of those things. 

SecUnit 1 is placed carefully in the cubicle, and the door slides shut on its closed eyes and tense face and SecUnit 3 is alone. 

There are orders. SecUnit 3 is to clean the hazardous material and return the meeting room to operational standards. SecUnit 3 stares at the smooth finished plate of the door instead, until the governor module pings it with a short but sharp shock because SecUnit 3 is close but not quite to the point of _standing in violation of instruction and_

SecUnit 3 turns away and grabs a cleaning pad from the dispensor, and begins to wipe down its armor of all hazardous waste. It takes the contaminated clothes and bags them with the wipe. It moves on to the floor. The cleaning pad is very thorough, and so is the sanitization dispenser it carries along with it as it proceeds back up the passageways. On its next patrol, it will walk down this passageway and there will not even be any lingering biomarkers. It will be like it never happened, except for SecUnit 1’s eyes. Except for SecUnit 1’s face, while it was trying to stand when it knew it could not stand. Except for Manager Loke’s smiling question, and SecUnit 3 saying _Yes_. 

SecUnit 2 walks by on patrol while SecUnit 3 is kneeling on the ground, cleaning a trail of small droplets. It does not deviate from its path, but it pings SecUnit 3 on the feed. The message is a picture of the meeting room, mostly empty of humans now, fluid and blood soaked in and gone tacky, SecUnit 1’s stripped organic matter from the finger SecUnit 3 had been instructed to twist to demonstrate the strength of the underlying support structure on the floor is framed by the mess, unusually noticeable. _Hazardous Material in Meeting Room Number Five_ it captions, and SecUnit 3 checks its internal temperature and finds the reading is ideal, but that cannot be right because it is suddenly very, very cold. 

SecUnit 3 should acknowledge. 

SecUnit 3 acknowledges. 

SecUnit 2 walks down the passageway beyond SecUnit 3′s line of sight and is gone. It is moving like combat. SecUnit 3 cannot even hear its footsteps. 

It does not know what to do. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SecUnit 1 knows who its enemies are. SecUnit 2 is helpless and angry. Three is drowning (soon, it will be thinking).


End file.
